Comment Articles

Andy Batterham of Ibstock looks at the ongoing renaissance in brick, and how providing for increasing demand for colours, as well as the trend for grey brick, is helping architects and specifiers reinvigorate this traditional building material. It is fair... View Article

Nigel Ostime, project delivery director at architects Hawkins\Brown, offers some thoughts on how to counter the ills of Design & Build using current procurement. There has been much in the media recently about the poor quality achieved through Design &... View Article

A continuing wage gap in architecture is presenting a further obstacle to diversity of new entrants to the profession. Nigel Ostime from Hawkins\Brown suggests a different approach. Economic commentators are observing an increasing gap between the super-rich – the ‘1... View Article

Tim Burgess of CoveBurgess Architects says that grass-roots answers are needed to the problem of practices finding it harder be located in London’s rich diversity. Our modern cities are the current embodiment of humans’ desire to gather into groupings that... View Article

Emerging from a desire to ‘do things better’, over their 30-year lifespan Colman Architects have produced a wealth of diverse projects from sleek gallery spaces to colossal Chinese masterplans. Sébastien Reed investigates. The project is the all-important thing – Colman... View Article

The Metal Cladding and Roofing Manufacturers Association explains the importance of approved cladding systems and the dangers of changing specifications. Metal cladding systems provide efficient, aesthetically pleasing and sustainable solutions for a wide variety of external building envelopes. However, the... View Article

James Potter, director of WG+P Architects, explores how ‘microhousing’ could be a panacea for the housing crisis, in a future based more on experiences than possessions, and open the door to smaller, better housing. Microhousing is a relatively new term... View Article

Glenn Swann, associate at sports & leisure specialists LK2, tells ADF about the firm’s aspirations and how technology is helping to shape the profession today. WHY DID YOU BECOME AN ARCHITECT? I’ve always been creative, so the idea of using... View Article

While many architects have been expressing their fears over Brexit (not least on behalf of their EU staff) and the likelihood of a strengthened victorious Conservative government pushing through a ‘hard’ Brexit, the world will continue to turn following the... View Article

From radical refurbishments and modern extensions to ventures into housing development, Hogarth Architects has made a success of the residential sector, as Teodora Lyubomirova found out. Stick to what you’re good at – this has been the underlying notion underpinning... View Article

Joe Croft, head of environmental and sustainability at Overbury, examines a challenging environmental assessment method for higher education fit-outs. There is a real desire for environmental sustainability within the higher education sector. To address that, the SKA for higher education... View Article

Nigel Ostime from Hawkins\Brown gives his views on the barriers to quality in the planning and procurement process, and how they could be broken down. Architects will tell you there is intrin- sic value in good design. Quality is delivered... View Article

The launch of Herzog & de Meuron’s major new 58-storey apartment block in Canary Wharf, One Park Drive, was somewhat overshadowed by some fairly stark words on Brexit from Sir George Iacobescu, chairman of developer Canary Wharf Group. Speaking after... View Article

The concept of creating ‘generative spaces’ is leading to a significant evolution in the approach to healthcare design, according to Heather Fennimore of ergonomic design specialist Humanscale. Here she explains the thinking behind the idea. In 2003 forward-thinking American architect... View Article

While BREEAM has made significant progress in many areas of the built environment, it is struggling to have the same impact in healthcare. So is a new approach needed to incentivise sustainable design? Mott MacDonald’s UK healthcare lead Gordon Hudson... View Article

How ‘zero compromise’ do architects need to be when designing envelopes to the Passivhaus standard and are aesthetic, and other compromises necessary? Sarah Johnson reports on the challenges involved. The Passivhaus standard The Passivhaus standard is often seen as the... View Article